Several types of memory devices, such as Flash memories and Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), use arrays of analog memory cells for storing data. Flash memory devices are described, for example, by Bez et al., in “Introduction to Flash Memory,” Proceedings of the IEEE, volume 91, number 4, April, 2003, pages 489-502, which is incorporated herein by reference.
In such memory devices, each analog memory cell typically comprises a transistor, which holds a certain amount of electric charge that represents the information stored in the cell. The electric charge written into a particular cell influences the “threshold voltage” of the cell, i.e., the voltage that needs to be applied to the cell so that the cell will conduct current.
Some memory devices, commonly referred to as Single-Level Cell (SLC) devices, store a single bit of information in each memory cell. Typically, the range of possible threshold voltages of the cell is divided into two regions. A voltage value falling in one of the regions represents a “0” bit value, and a voltage belonging to the second region represents “1”. Higher-density devices, often referred to as Multi-Level Cell (MLC) devices, store two or more bits per memory cell. In multi-level cells, the range of threshold voltages is divided into more than two regions, with each region representing more than one bit.
Multi-level Flash cells and devices are described, for example, by Eitan et al., in “Multilevel Flash Cells and their Trade-Offs,” Proceedings of the 1996 IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM), New York, N.Y., pages 169-172, which is incorporated herein by reference. The paper compares several kinds of multilevel Flash cells, such as common ground, DINOR, AND, NOR and NAND cells.
Eitan et al., describe another type of analog memory cell called Nitride Read Only Memory (NROM) in “Can NROM, a 2-bit, Trapping Storage NVM Cell, Give a Real Challenge to Floating Gate Cells?” Proceedings of the 1999 International Conference on Solid State Devices and Materials (SSDM), Tokyo, Japan, Sep. 21-24, 1999, pages 522-524, which is incorporated herein by reference. NROM cells are also described by Maayan et al., in “A 512 Mb NROM Flash Data Storage Memory with 8 MB/s Data Rate”, Proceedings of the 2002 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC 2002), San Francisco, Calif., Feb. 3-7, 2002, pages 100-101, which is incorporated herein by reference.
Other exemplary types of analog memory cells are Ferroelectric RAM (FRAM) cells, magnetic RAM (MRAM) cells and phase change RAM (PRAM, also referred to as Phase Change Memory—PCM) cells. FRAM, MRAM and PRAM cells are described, for example, by Kim and Koh in “Future Memory Technology including Emerging New Memories,” Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Microelectronics (MIEL), Nis, Serbia and Montenegro, May 16-19, 2004, volume 1, pages 377-384, which is incorporated herein by reference.
In some data storage methods, the data is transformed using an orthogonal transformation prior to storing the data in the memory cells. U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,397,364 and 6,467,062, whose disclosures are incorporated herein by reference, describe the use of orthogonal transformation methods such as Fast Fourier Transforms (FFT), Discrete Fourier Transforms (DFT), Discrete Cosine Transforms (DCT), Fast Hartley Transforms (FHT), wavelet transforms, Chebyshev polynomials and Fractals.